It’s important to remove the honors block to give students freedom to choose their classes based on their interests.

Flexibility is key to meeting every student’s needs and giving every student the means to succeed. Allowing students to choose their classes starting freshman year could provide the stepping stone to a successful track.

Freshman year can be frightening on its own, without the added weight of having to choose all honors or nothing. Grouping students together in the “honors” and “non-honors” blocks further divides students and pressures them to excel in classes they may not have otherwise chosen to take, or that they may struggle in.

The current all-or-nothing policy discourages students from signing up for honors and pushing themselves to excel because they may feel like they can’t perform in all of the high-level classes.

The block schedule perpetuates an achievement gap between students who choose to take higher-level classes and those who don’t.

The block schedule restricts accessibility, as it places those who take all honors classes on the competitive end of the spectrum and those who don’t take honors completely at the other end. This furthers the achievement gap in that students are not given the chance to take one or two honors classes to test out whether they fit well in an upper-level class.

According to ninth grade counselor Barb Nelson, with the divide of honors and support blocks, the honors block became predominantly white and the support and non-honors blocks predominantly consisted of students of color.

What a student chooses to take freshman year could set their track in high school in a completely different direction. Pressure should not be put on students to take classes they aren’t ready for yet. The freedom to choose classes freshman year based on a student’s strengths and interests is important in fostering personal growth and success during a student’s high school career.